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Sports Today: Coaching won’t hold back Ohio State offense this season

Jamie Sabau/Getty Images
COLUMBUS, OH - OCTOBER 1: Demario McCall #30 of the Ohio State Buckeyes scores on a 20-yard touchdown run in the third quarter against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at Ohio Stadium on October 1, 2016 in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State defeated Rutgers 58-0. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)

Posted: 9:36 a.m. Friday, July 28, 2017

Maybe the first day of practice isn’t the time to make sweeping statements about a football team, but here’s one anyway: Ohio State’s offense won’t be held back by coaching this year.

While quickening the pace at which the Buckeyes play was a big talking point, the more important aspects of his taking over as offensive coordinator after the failures of the last two years were more subtle.

Simply put, Wilson arrived in Columbus needing to convince Urban Meyer not to worry about what he’s doing on a daily basis.

Earning the famously demanding head coach’s trust is important not just for piece of mind, though. It should allow both of them to do their jobs better.

That was a formula for success that was lacking the last two years after Tom Herman left to become head coach at Houston.

If Ohio State looked disjointed the last two seasons with Ed Warinner and Tim Beck sharing coordinator duties, there’s probably good reason for it. They were trying to run “the Ohio State offense,” as Meyer calls it, more to Meyer’s liking than their own.

They are gone, replaced by a man who not only has a long history of successfully running a versatile modern spread offense as a coordinator at a Power 5 program (Oklahoma) but also six years as a head coach on his resume.

That is something even Herman lacked when he arrived in Columbus, and it could give Wilson a head start in earning full driving privileges from Meyer.

Everyone remembers the way the Herman era ended — with a remade offense flourishing behind underdog quarterback Cardale Jones and previously lesser-known running back Ezekiel Elliott on the way to the 2014 national championship game — but there were growing pains for him, too.

That was also a major issue during the past two seasons, not just for those two but for many of the Buckeyes — including a surprisingly large number of receivers earning a paycheck in the NFL right now.

Think about how many stories have been written about the OSU receivers’ struggles, look at how many were drafted the past two seasons and tell me if those two things jibe.

They don’t.

Talent hasn’t been an issue. It’s been plan and execution, the former often making the latter more difficult.

So while there is a lot of work to do between now and the end of the season— let alone the opener against Indiana — one big lesson came from the first day at Ohio State.

The new man in charge of the Buckeye offense removed any doubt he knows what needs to be fixed.

At the risk of sounding too much like a PSA between Saturday morning cartoons, that’s half the battle.

Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Bengals begin practice today.

If they miss the playoffs again, they won’t be able to blame their schedule.

If you have any sense of news judgement, the bigger story here is that a greater percentage of people in the survey said they watched more NFL football last year than less.

That’s interesting considering the tone of many stories last year about the decline in ratings (which almost entirely corrected itself after the Presidential election was over) was one of gloom and doom for the league, people wondering aloud if the league was just losing popularity after years of hegemony over the sporting landscape.

Only 12 percent of people said they watched less NFL last year, but the fact 26 percent of them cited Kaepernick got top billing. That edged out people citing “the league's off-the-field image issues with domestic violence or with game delays, including penalties,” which got 24 percent (even though that seems like two different things).

This is all worth noting, but the choice of what to emphasize is telling given how few people it actually represents in total.

Whether the larger lesson is about an agenda at ESPN or the general ability of people there to judge news is up to you...

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